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Code and programming may not be the most important topics on the planet but it is an area of study that sufferers two major problems. one: an industry with millions of unfilled job positions and two: a world where not enough teachers feel confident to run programming projects. The iPad can offer a solution in these situations.

There’s an app for that (and a generation)

Fortunately, the world of code education is getting easier and more self-sufficient every month. When I say self-sufficient, I mean such that having an expert in the room is not longer a requirement. Thousands of children, some as young as four, are teaching themselves to program and make apps and games . They are using, apps, YouTube, gadgets, drones and robots, all available at home. This generation are also becoming experts at collaborating online.

Initially, many code teachers in the world were skeptical about whether the iPad had any role to play in code learning and thought of it as just a consumption device. That was never quite the case and now the millions of iPads held by children everyday are primed to take them on the full coding journey from beginner to pro.

Here’s a summary of some of the apps on offer and the level they cater for:

Where do I start and end this journey?

Here I will attempt to summarise the various levels of learning and the apps that sit at each stage.

Stage one – Single procedure

Getting from A to B might be easy for humans but computers need commands every step of the way. There’s also a long way and short way to code anything to get from A to B and learning the shortcuts is important. These apps are great at introducing the main options when doing any type of coding. They will do the teaching and the students can get quite competitive over how far they’ve got.

Stage two – multi character

All apps, websites and games always have more than one thing on the screen that has been coded to do something. Learning how components and characters can interact, pass messages and information and even borrow each other’s code is key to start the development of full products. These apps will open up more open ended options and allow and the students to get creative whilst still delivering extra lessons to spark ideas. They do all this with friendly drag and drop commands, whilst still offering the full toolkit. Pictured: Tickle; Hopscotch; Tynker.

Stage three – IDEs and Text code

Before you take the final plunge into typing your own code to make products that might change the world, it’s worth being introduced to the type of application coders use, namely the integrated development Environment (IDE). These apps offer tools, buttons and shortcuts specific to a platform or language. For example, Apple’s IDE is called Xcode and has iPad specific tools and will emulate an iPad to trial your app on. It’s important to introduce to text coding so students discover how carefully you have to be with syntax. These three apps find a friendly and fun way to introduce IDEs and JavaScript and a real text language. Pictured: GamePress; Hakitzu; Codecadmy.

Stage four – time to go pro!

There are a number of app developers creating apps that allow you to type, compile and test real code in nearly every language. They can cost a dollar or two but come with keyboards specific to providing shortcuts to allow you to type and organise the code quickly. This will allow students with iPads to make a serious start on their coding career. Pictured: Python 3 (but they all look similar)

Journey as a team

This whole process from beginner to pro can be done without the need for an expert. More teachers need to feel confident that they can introduce coding at almost any age, get the students onto the apps and then step out of the way. I find teams of 4 work well to build coding knowledge collaboratively and helping each other through the various challenges.

Jobs for the boys and the girls

Find your local jobs website and do the >$100 job search. In nearly all cases, IT will be the industry with the biggest need and in many cases it will be double the 2nd place industry for job availability. There’s a global discussion about success rates with boys and coding often interests boys who struggle elsewhere. It can also act a a gateway to covering much math. Girls are also being encouraged into the industry with extra incentives and programmes such as GirlsWhoCode.com. Google also run special initiatives just for women.

In my recent work, both in the classroom and in research, the most common recurring question is “what should we be teaching?” This question is valid in a world of Google, Wikipedia and instant access to information from the device in your pocket. This educational challenge is also expanded by the thousands of young people already pushing beyond the conventional system due to success in personally instigated start-ups and projects they have organised themselves. The personal empowerment and opportunities that the internet and technology offer will challenge nearly every aspect of traditional education.

The most significant innovation in the classroom during the next 10 years will not be some magical technology or even students staying at home. It will be a shift towards student-led education, which focuses on the development of key competencies for success in this century. Photo credit

I’m lucky. I live in New Zealand where we have a future-focused assessment system that allows teachers to develop a relevant educational system for the 21st century. To give you an indication as to how different it is, the national curriculum has less than one page dedicated to Math! Our focus is on five key competencies:

Thinking;

Using language, symbols, and texts

Managing self

Relating to others

Participating and contributing

This means teachers are free and trusted to tailor their classroom activities to suit the exact children in the room and also allow them to inquire into content of their own choosing. That said, the change to this less structured approach has been a challenge for many long-standing educators and only in its eighth year is it starting to bear real fruit.

The need for this pedagogical innovation in teaching philosophy involves technology but is also, in part, driven by technological advancement. The speed at which technology is altering the opportunities within the job market is increasing each year. Recent studies indicate that large percentages of jobs will disappear altogether. This increasingly flexible world requires flexible but also collaborative learning environments. Students are being encouraged to create their future career rather than find one.

My conversations with educators around the world indicates that we are seeing a worldwide shift towards student-driven learning, where the content studied, and challenged, is also selected by the learners. Teachers will learn to stand back and be amazed at what students are capable of when given this freedom.

The innovation will come from the dismantling of traditional classroom hierarchies and the empowerment of young people to use any technology and skills, which they can more successfully develop in a learning environment that they control.

“Did you know, there’s an app for that?” In fact, there’s 100s of new apps everyday and many teachers are put off technology because of it’s rapidly changing landscape. “How can I possibly keep up with what I should be asking the kids to use?” is a common question. The secret is to not worry about which app is the right one. Let the kids collectively do the ground work and worry about keeping abreast of the generic technologies and capabilities that numerous apps are making available.

But before you even worry about overall technologies, worry about what skills your teaching (regardless of content) might be developing. It is becoming a much talked about subject that any particular content schools might have “delivered” in the past is diminishing in value as A) it all becomes available on-demand on the internet in both written and video format and B) the world changes at an increasingly faster rate and priorities change year-on-year.

Should they be working on successfully communicating in writing or visually?

How about project planning or connecting with the community?

… and so on.

I also then ensure I have answers for the kids regarding why this is a skill worth practicing. Much of how I operate is around student devised projects but I work with the students on what they might focus on if I feel they or their team are not proving strong at a particular skill, like those I listed above. In a rapidly changing world, these are the skills that help develop what for me is the key skill: learning to learn. Why? For example, recent research is showing that unto a 3rd of jobs that exist in western countries will be replaced by automated robots or computers in the next 2 decades!Picture Credit

Universal Content – add purpose to education

What information is most important these days? That’s a hard question. Given the uncertainty over even the next 5 years, how does any teacher know what they are teaching will be both paramount or relevant in five years. In New Zealand, I’m lucky that the National Curriculum took account of this uncertainty over where the future might lead and in 2007 removed nearly all content to focus on universal skills relevant to improving communities and the economy in the 21st century.

Universal technologies not apps

The freedom the iPad brings to each student’s learning experience is key when the skills and content being dealt with can be so varied within a class. Let the students find relevant apps whilst teachers focus on knowing the available technology types that they might be expect to see or encourage as options for dealing with material, even if it’s just occasionally. Here is my list of technologies that iPads now offer to a student:

Movie making (Telling stories) – see here for movie making skillsNarrative is so important in learning and allowing students to tell a story whilst combining multiple media types (film/photo/audio/voiceover) can be one of the most powerful and enjoyable learning experiences. The importance I have placed in any one-to-one device having a camera that can be used for this activity never fails to prove itself every week in my school.

Animation – A challenge in planning and patienceThe opportunity to plan and produce animation, either in 2D or 3D is a real challenge at any age. It’s also fun and allows students to recreate any situation for any topic of story they might want to present.

Collaborative cloud documents / presentations / planningThis is very much how the world will operate for the next few decades and so building these skills and also their new forms of “netiquette” become paramount. The power in crowdsourcing ideas and skills when producing learning outcomes and the way in which live collaboration speeds up the process whilst developing social / team skills is crucial to all industries from the arts to business to sports.

Web publishing – Blogs / wikis / iBooks / video / apps
The fact that young people can now publish instantly for free is still not fully understood as the world-changing situation that it is by many educators. The world audience that many people under the age of 16 already have and the self-made learning network the children build for themselves through feedback and professional advice can not be underestimated in how it will change the landscape in schools over the next 10 years.

Green Screening
This technology is a powerful and fun addition to the world of mobile device learning. It is powerful for telling stories, reporting on events already filmed, school work produced in class or acting out impossible scenarios never before imagined in the classroom. My students were able to stand inside their iPad work whilst they talked us through in a video.

Modelling – Allow students to play with that that would normally be impossible or difficult
Many apps now model or simulate objects and scenarios for the students to play with but there’s also numerous opportunities to build models with on-screen clay, lego, paint, metal, or electronics. This is not ideal as the real thing is often better but if arranging or funding the real thing is difficult logistically, these virtual technologies are brilliant, especially in the way they can be instantly reset for numerous attempts.

Augmented Reality
This is the new frontier becoming increasingly mainstream. AR, as it’s referred to, is the idea of adding a layer of on-screen information, written, colour or 3D, on-top of what you can see through the camera in real life (think Robocop). Google has just completed it’s first trial with “Google Glass” and what DAQRI are doing for industry is amazing. Here’s my intro to the Augmented Reality for schools

CodingCode.org and “Hour of Code” are part of an international push to have young people all coding. Whether you knew that or not or are already onto debating its merits or not, it can’t be argued that the results of coding now rule our lives and children should have at least some exposure to what it looks like and is about. There are now many teach-yourself systems and apps on the market and most are entertaining and successful at introducing young people to how coding works. Here’s one of my post on iPad coding.

Building Networks
This has become natural and normal practice for many children. Kids start networking online as early as age five with sites like MoshiMonsters.com and even coding apps like Hopscotch build on this with uploading, commenting and peer support through what they call “Branching”. Tumblr, Facebook and even Snapchat can be seen by parents and teachers as worrying signs but a positive view is to see them as practice for what some business experts have already predicted will be the most crucial skill of all over the next 30 years – networking & connecting. Many of my senior students will setup support Facebook groups or pages regardless of it being mentioned or not by the teacher. It’s just how they operate.

BookmarkingBeing able to not only save web discoveries but also collate, organise, collaborate and share collections of bookmarked material is an essential skill from the “to-do list” to more serious research. Systems like Evernote and others are great at helping people manage the vast array of stuff on offer. Modern bookmarking apps are also great when teams are collaborating on one project.

An open ended challenge

There are thousands of apps that offer entertaining and even interactive experiences with specific content. The issue for schools is becoming too reliant on a specific app’s existence. It is hard more most app developers to maintain the business and compete in such a difficult market and they often disappear after 2 or 3 years. Allow students to discover and use content apps but don;t centre your teaching on them. Focus your energy on universal skills and technologies and allow the students to practice and showcase their innate curiosity and talents for mastering specific apps collaboratively. in short, future proof your learning environment.

Please let me know if you have ideas for other technology types and I’ll add them to the list. Thanks.

COLOUR: This lesson covers dealing with colour and sticking to colour themes and working with images within your colour theme. I find colour a fascinating topic as we are all effected by it far more than we think. Advertisers are using colour everyday to not only grab your attention but control what you think about things. When trying to take a reader through a topic within one of my infographics, I am very aware of how colour will effect what they look at first and the importance their eyes will place on each element.

Below is my 2nd “How to make an @iPadwells infographic” video lesson. These can all be found in their own playlist.

This blog is nearly 2 years old and I thought it was time to revisit the reason for its existence. I am still teaching 11 to 18 year-olds everyday in BYOD classrooms (not iPad only) and can claim asignificant experience in the various pros and cons of all types and brands of devices. When I’m considering which students are supported the most in their learning by their device, I still conclude the iPad and its eco-system is my recommendation for handling the full breadth of activities and opportunities undertaken in 21st century schools.

I do appreciate that during the last 4 and a half years it has become fashionable in education to proclaim “the device doesn’t matter” but each week I experience a at least one moment where it does.

10 Reasons why I still recommend iPad

Issues 1 – 5 – Tablet format over Laptop

FilmingThe first one is easy and takes into account that an individual learner’s ability to film and edit, either to learn or reflect on learning is such a important tool these days that the device must be able to be used as such. Young people live their lives through instant access and ability to take photos and videos on the move. This is where my students on laptops and Chromebooks are left stranded at their desk. Photo Credit
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Active learningIt’s not only the resulting photos and films that come from tablet devices but that the learners can be on the move so easily during the process of learning. This extra flexibility that the tablet format offers my students allows them to move from inside to outside as they need, often on the spur of the moment . My students work outside for both the sake of the project requirements and/or that of just comfort. It’s often highlighted that if a learner’s not comfortable, they wont learn. Photo Credit
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TouchWho said you can’t teach both programming and digital citizenship with drum machines? I do. Be it a sliding control, a drum pad or an paint effect, the learning opportunities that touch offers far outweigh any outdated argument that young people can’t comfortably type vast amounts of text by tapping the screen. After all, they tap 30,000 words per year into Facebook alone, mostly on the phone! Touch offers a much more connected, real & enjoyable experience during activities. It often removes from the mind the fact that tech is even involved in the process.
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Tilt & FlexibilityThe iPads ability to physically replicate so many tools in the hand, such as a spirit level, microphone, test tube, moving paint, bouncing ball and any number of physics experiments, never mind the wow factor of green screening on the move also means the laptop student is left to imagine and not experiencewhat physical effect one thing might have on another.
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Augmented Reality (AR)AR is already becoming a major feature in education and iPads have made a great start with a a number of great apps and systems like Aurasma and Layar. To make the most of these systems and also create your own, you need a device that can be held on the move. This has become a major part of my arguments for iPads over laptops. Photo Credit
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Issues 6 – 10 – iOS, Apps, eco-system & learning opportunities

Technology for all.Apple has always maintained the same philosophy. “We want you to be you, whilst we worry about the tech.” You may have read my many posts on kids’ programming and think I’m one of those extra-techie types but I have a strong argument for the fact that most people are ‘normal’ and not interested in how it all works. They want to get on being the artist, author or scientist they’d like to be. I have found my non-iPadding students having to do far too much research into if an equivalent app is available or which plugin they require to carry out a task. This slows down to learning process, causes frustration and has many of my students leaving their device in their bag and pairing up with an iPadder. Yes, Apple’s walled garden of a system frustrates geek types, but for the huge majority it means immediate productivity. Photo Credit
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Advanced App store with education focusThe average teacher and student needs as much support as can be made available when introducing or keeping up-to-date with using their devices to learn. Apple has always led the way with providing this support for education, highlighted by their organised, categorised educational app store. iTunesU has also become a major educational system for many schools and allows for the easy management of content whilst developing student driven programmes. iPads have the advantage of being the primary educational choice and in-turn have the educational app developers investing more time and money into serving schools on iOS.
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Kid friendly code learningYou may already know me as a supporter for kids learning to code. There is an international push to have all students learning this craft that forms such a central part of everyone’s lives these days. You can code on both Android and Windows 8 but only in it’s full advanced code form. If elementary / primary school kids want to learn how computers think and how code works, the iPad is still the only tablet offering apps, such as Hopscotch to learn how code works and has many on offer.
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Teachers supporting teachers support Students supporting students.Unfortunately for the other companies, most teachers I’ve met and know have an iPad (except the really geeky ones). When it comes to professional development, teachers prefer to receive ideas and recommendations from other teachers. This has led to a much stronger knowledgebase in how to get things done on iPads than that of other devices. In Education websites, blogs and in professional social-media chats, the dialogue around tablet use will be centred on what’s available for iPad and someone venturing out on this road will find the transition far more easy if holding an iOS device. Photo credit
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Technical Management for SchoolsNot my favourite topic, but for elementary / primary schools, non-BYOD and any school wanting more control over devices, apps and multi-seat licensing, Apple has now produced a suite of management tools that make this easy. I wont go into too much detail but check out the MDM and iOS8 pages for more info. The competition is far behind in this area, especially in offering educational multi-seat licensing for those apps you want every student to have.

Extra thought – Google Account is a must.

I thought I’d just add that in addition to the iPad, I do still recommend a Google account. The cloud-based document sharing eco-system that Google provide, along with Youtube makes it a must for handling the bulk of traditional documentation, whilst adding the sharing and collaboration tools. The Youtube is also a must of offloading the iPad video content. It’s just a shame that Google went with the business model when designing their Chromebook device, meaning people would require a 2nd camera device to carryout truly active 21st Century education.

Conclusion

I write this from years of personal experience and yes, I know that there will be thousands out there who know one of the other systems inside out and will argue that it’s just as easy and flexible on the other platforms. My experiences tell me that the key difference is the amount of technical information required to setup quickly to learn on the other platforms. This takes time that many teachers & students are not willing to invest.

One issue I’ve noticed is that where elementary / primary schools are more likely to be flexible, innovative learning environments, as students enter high school, teachers, concerned with what seems like a long list of content to get through, are more likely to be demanding lengthy written work after hours of lectures. This drives them away from considering the iPad as the appropriate device. I would ask those teachers to take a real look at how the world and especially the young people in their classroom go about their lives. Look at how collaborative, active & flexible we all are these days and consider how your content could be accessed and processed rather than delivered and simple duplicated by the students.

For me, the iPad is still the device to get. It’s not just about business tools and apps, it’s about learning and this is still the are where Apple leads in tech. Education needs it easy and the iPad just works!

I’ve just had the pleasure of doing two presentations at the first #EdchatNZ conference at the splendid Hobsonville Point secondary School (@hpsschool). If nothing else, it made me glad to be a Kiwi and celebrate not only a world-leading education system but the people who make it.
The conference was lead by Danielle Myburgh (@MissDTheTeacher), the original instigator of the Twitter chat #EdChatNZ. Her positive energy is infectious and her opening keynote focused on her status as a ‘lone nut’ in NZ education.

What followed was two days of inspiring workshops and talks from forward-thinking NZ educators who all showed passion in ensuring young kiwis would experience a 21st century relevant, collaborative and challenging education.

Some of the many points that were discussed

Students should be involved in ALL aspects of education including planning.

Community should be directly engaged to find knowledge and resources relevant to the students

Learning spaces should be flexible and used to encourage different types of learning behaviours from social to reflective.

Schools should be dismantling the traditional hierarchies and ensuring that all are seen as both teachers and learners.

Challenges should be arranged around real-world situations and problem-solving.

How Hopscotch builds Abilities from Abilities.

The iPad coding app Hopscotch is now able to teach kids about the primary way coding is organised. Procedures (abilities) can be named and referred to by name when needed by multiple characters. My 2nd lesson shows how an overall task can be broken down into it’s smaller stages and these stages are called upon to perform the larger task.

Here’s my help sheet showing how procedures can be built from smaller procedures:

Many obstacles that iPad cynics attempt to put in place when discussing a roll-out are based on untruths, poorly research and/or out-of-date information. I was delighted when my Canadian Twitter friend and fellow iPad blogger, Steve Lai decided to join forces, as we’ve done before, to combat this dis-information that floats around the education profession worldwide.

Preamble: This article is to support iPads in teaching. However, it is not to devalue the benefits of a great teacher. The execution of iPads in class is only going to go as far as the passions and mindset of the teacher allows it to. In other words, the iPad will never replace quality teaching.

MYTHS vs. TRUTHS ???

Who needs an iPad? My laptop can do everything I need in class.

Steve: “While it is true that the iPad cannot run programs like Photoshop, laptops can’t be used as cameras or while standing. A modern, active learning environment can be hindered in options by laptops. However, the large majority of common daily tasks (web browsing/word processing/email) can easily be achieved with the iPad. If you don’t need to perform high-end projects, you might find it possible to rely solely on an iPad. However, most of us will still need the performance of a PC some time or another.”
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Richard: ” The camera is the new pen. People of all ages have started using photos and video to do many tasks they used to do with pens, such as: photographing signs, posters, & whiteboards instead of taking notes. Taking selfies instead of writing postcards; making & editing video instead of writing essays. Laptops can not be used as cameras and so will find their usefulness in general education decrease over the next decade.”

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Teachers will no longer be teaching, students will just be playing

Steve: “On the contrary, teachers will both be learning on the go and teaching what they learn. Professional development is paramount in keeping up with the latest trends in teaching, and that is no different when it comes to technology. While there can be review “games” students do on the iPad, they must have an appropriate reason to be utilized in the class. Most students will undoubtedly play plenty of games at home on their own time; they are not meant to be played in class. Instead, the successful iPad teacher is free to work with students one-to-one on the tasks after lesson delivery, and will facilitate the learning much more carefully, negating the need for the students to just ‘play’.”
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Richard: “The 21st Century has given the young person tools and services that offer a power to drive one’s own learning. Teachers nowadays need to consider their role and how much they are developing young people to either rely on them for each step or achieve a deeper learning from discovery, experimentation, collaboration and reflection. I try to design programmes that ensure students are not asking “what do I do next’ or ‘can you tell me how to do this’”
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iPads cannot play Flash

Steve: “In truth, there actually are apps that allow Flash to be played on an iPad, but the real question is why are certain people making this “issue” their argument against iPads? This may have been a strong argument back in 2010-2011, but these days, websites have adapted to suit the iPad. I rarely encounter websites that require Flash, and when I do, I just move on to a more updated one. HTML5, which plays just fine on iPads, has more or less replaced Flash in the modern Internet, and is a very suitable alternative.”
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Richard: “Most computing & business these days is mobile & personalised. Adobe themselves have stopped developing Flash for all mobile devices to focus on HTML5. It is important to future proof your courses and reliance on Flashis risky. More importantly, it should be the students who are offered the freedom to experience learning in a more personal way. My students often show me newer tools, sites and apps that do the same job better.”

Students interaction will decrease; they will rarely communicate effectively with each other.

Steve: ” In groups of two or three, students have shown tremendous ability to work together on iPad projects. In my experiences, they have no qualms about sharing the actual iPad use, and, in fact, teach one another very successfully. Even in a one-to-one setting, students are willing to help each other when needed. When projects are completed, they are very excited to share them with the rest of their classes.”
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Richard: “Active learning increases the need for teamwork. The iPad offers opportunity for student driven learning and thus increases the amount of communication between peers as they create material and connect to learning outside the classroom too.”

There is no USB connection on an iPad: How do I save and import my files?

Steve: “USB drives came in very handy a few years ago. They replaced the disk, and could fit much more storage. Students would hand in their assignments via USB. It was, needless to say, tedious to keep track of all of them! Nowadays, Cloud storage of files replaces USB drives. Using Google Drive, saves are instantly made, so students don’t need to worry about using (and losing) their USB keys. Another cloud storage solution that have become very popular is Dropbox. In fact, most productivity apps will already have Dropbox integration. With online storage, you never need to worry about losing that USB key. Need to transfer a file from one device to another? AirDrop is also a relatively new and easy way to do so.”Further reading:Dropbox for Dummies – Why you shouldn’t need your USB againAirDrop: iOS 7’s most important new feature for teachers
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You can’t easily print with an iPad

Steve: “Almost all new printers have wireless (Airprint and WiFi) printing. Most printers are affordable, some costing as little as $30. No, your laserjet printer from 2005 won’t be able to print off your iPad, but the next printer that you (or your school) purchase(s) will. Having said this, printing has become less of a necessity, as intelligent educators would rather have electronic copies instead of piles of paper.”
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Richard “There are many free tools and services that allow students to publish their digital work online. Thousands of schools are asking students to blog their school work and reflections. This publishing is important for a number a reasons and can negate the need to print. Teachers, parents and peers can comment on the work and I have my students offering praise and assistance. This more personal approach to feedback can also increase engagement. Paper still has an important role to play in education for a number of creative reasons but the one of them is not to duplicate the work from an iPad.”

Apps are expensive!

Steve: “Apps cost a fraction of what we used to pay for computer software. We understand that teachers don’t particularly like to spend their own money on apps since they do purchase a lot for their classrooms already. However, with proper research through online networking and word of mouth, teachers can purchase only the apps that are deem worthwhile. Most apps will cost less than your average latte at Starbucks. Before purchasing, say, a $10 app, talk to people who have used it, or read several reviews of that app in the App Store.”.

Richard: “All the essentials for a modern learning environment can be found for free. Students can film, edit, draw, write, publish, record, and share for free. Let the students do the work of discovering the best free tools and make that an important part of their learning – they’ll need it for the rest of their life!”

The iPad is only a consumption device.

Steve: “While the common use for the public for iPads is definitely for consumption purposes, there is an ever-increasing amount of creation-type apps for iPad. The possibilities are literally endless using apps such as Garageband, iMovie, Sock Puppets and Explain Everything. It is amazing to see students use their imagination to create projects beyond our expectations. The large majority of iPad owners will use their devices almost solely for consumption, but with proper professional development and encouragement, educators can unleash a sky’s-the-limit approach to what can be created with the iPad.”
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Learning is not something that gets delivered. iPads, particularly in a 1-to-1 environment, allow a teacher to work with the students whilst they create their own approach to learning content and skills for life.

“There’s no Microsoft Office on there, so why would I bother?

Steve: “Well, actually, yes there is, as of March 2014. The caveat is that you need a Microsoft 365 subscription to be able to edit documents. Some schools may offer their teachers subscriptions, while other teachers will need to decide whether or not the $99 annual fee is worth it. If they are already current 365 subscribers for their PCs at home, then using Office on the iPad will not cost anything extra. There are also apps of MS Office “suites” that you can edit all your MS Office files, such as Quickoffice and Polaris Office. Finally, Apple’s own iWork suite is now free for all new devices, and is a viable and more affordable alternative.”

iPads are too complicated to use with elementary age students

Steve: “Right: Grade 4 students created this green screen movie:My students are a prime example of how the above statement is not true. I teach students in an elementary school with a set of 16 iPads, and I have been impressed at the work that has been done with them. With proper instruction, students are eager to not only master the basics of what is taught, but also to go ahead and strive to exceed teachers’ expectations. This could be from the fact that the large majority of my students will have at least one iPad in the family already. But with the intuitiveness of age-appropriate apps, most students do not have difficulty with doing at least what is expected of them.”

Richard: “Adults often think some apps are not intuitive because they approach all new adventures with a lot of hesitation and fear of ‘getting it wrong’. Kids don;t suffer this hesitation and learn apps amongst themselves very quickly and are always willing to share their experience with other. Classes of any age students soon sort themselves out.

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far then thanks for reading all our information and I hope it helps. In my experience, the central theme to any negative viewpoint on iPads is a lack of awareness of:

Young people’s habits and practices since the birth of devices & social media

21st century priorities and that IT has become integrated in all life and not a separate school subject

90% of people don’t want a technical relationship with the device and want the simplicity that so many school technicians realise would remove much of their workload.

I would hope most schools and teachers have moved beyond fighting these myths but I know it’s not the case. It’s worth noting that I work in a BYOD school using all devices and can report that the teachers, students & technicians agree in our daily comparisons, iPads do just work more often and with more ease that all the others. They are also capable of achieving 100% of most students educational needs.

Thanks Steve for another fun collaboration and for all your work on the theme & images etc.

Comic apps are an important addition to any student’s learning armoury and I know that many classrooms are already engaged with them but I wanted to:

study the various uses for them in general education and

focus on a specific example app that takes things a little further than the others.

Alongside the obvious use in creative narrative writing, the comic format can be utilised by many areas of study. Anything we do in life can be seen as a narrative and the comic is a great way to both summarise and reflect on any experience.

Why do they work with kids?

It is tempting to think that whether you like it or not, a combination of the internet, TV, Computer games and mobile devices has made the current young people heavily rely on visual presentation and images in general. But this is not a new phenomenon. As Mr SAMR has highlighted, humans have always found the most success and progress when tools allowed for visual representation and story telling. They have also always had a desire and practical need for using visuals before text.

Only for young kids? … No.

If you haven’t noticed, graphic novels have hit the mainstream and are being discussed as having considerable positive effects on teenage engagement and ability in reading. This is also feeding onto them reading standard novels in greater numbers too. Here’s a nice panel discussion of that very topic:

Just for English and creative writing class? … No.

Here’s a list of ideas I’ve discussed with teachers in schools:

Students enjoy using the comic format for :

Recording science experiments with photos and reflecting on processes within each comic frame;

Storyboarding media studies projects from short films;

Recording the process and decision-making during project-based-learning;

Explaining Historical events with the thoughts of key characters as they took place;

A good way for teachers to move away from front-of-class presentation and have the students engage with content individually.

Taking it to the next level. Which app?

I thought I’d mention one app as it works well with all ages and especially caters for the older kids looking at producing more professional graphic novel level material.

The app I like the most is Comics Head. It is the Explain Everything of comic apps. It has every option imaginable, whilst being easy to use and publish with.

You can:

Choose between blank layouts and completed templates

Add images from any source or draw from scratch

Move and rotate anything instantly

Choose from a massive library of characters and objects.

Full suite of editing tools.

Crop to various shapes

Save comics as templates for others;

Share to Social media and save directly to Google Drive;

Fine tune and refine elements to professional standard

For the students who get serious about comics or to give every option needed when recording/teaching a process or event, Comics Head is great fun to use and hasn’t the restrictions of other comic apps.

Many teachers would benefit from opening up to the use of comics as a format that definitely engages students in dealing with any kind of content.

Writing blogs like this one and interacting with teachers on Twitter and the like can make edtech teacher types, like me, forget that it is still the case that the majority of teachers are not confident or regular users of modern technologies (social, mobile & student-centred) and need effective introduction and explanation of their benefits. I would estimate this majority of the non-confident to still be around 80%.

I have been Head of Department in my current school for just one year and a number of my teachers have highlighted recently how far they’ve come in just one year. I thought I’d share my approach to providing PD and why it might be that it seems to work (well, some of it)

THREE QUESTIONS:

Why does so much Professional Development NOT work?

Why do schools make such slow progress with modern workflows compared with business?

Why do some teachers refuse to budge from their tried and trusted methods?

FIVE COMPLAINTS

“PD’s never to do with how I teach”

“I always forget PD because I don’t use it immediately”

“PD’s a waste of my time”

“It’s always too much to take in”

“I’m not confident with using technology in my teaching”

COMPLAINTS CAN BECOME SOLUTIONS

Choose an Tech-coach Teacher to work one-to-one with others and give them time to do it
Make PD to do with an individual’s current teaching – Don’t introduce an unrelated “new-way”
Give them a reason to use it immediately
Provide the PD at a time that suits the individual
Provide PD in small but frequent sessions
Confidence grows slowly, so only take small steps from current practice

SOLUTION ?

Every student is an individual and so is every teacher.

Providing standardised Professional Development to groups larger than 10 is just as effective as trying to teach a standardised curriculum to classes larger than 10, that is to say, not effective at all. The biggest missing piece in so many PD jigsaws is a reason for each individual to ‘develop’ in that way. As well as a professional reason, each individual will be looking for a personal benefit too. Some non-edtech teachers will need small conveniences added to their current practice.

HOOK THEM IN FIRST

My trick is to always emphasise the personal benefits or conveniences such as time-saving, less admin or increased popularity with students to the teacher before explaining any professional or pedagogical benefit. In addition to this, by mostly working with individuals, I can also add an immediate use for the ‘development’ by looking at the specific teacher’s current teaching programme. This gets them using it for a number of days after the session. If they feel there’s a personal benefit, they’re more likely to give it a proper go. The professional and educational benefits will be truly realised in time and the teacher will be proudly trumpeting those, whilst possibly keeping the personal liking for it more quiet.

KEEP IT SIMPLE – SMALL BUT FREQUENT. STEPS MAKE BETTER PROGRESS

When I’m working with a teacher, I only work with something they are currently doing and try to reduce the development to 3 points or even 3 clicks if I can. I also ensure I only ever cover one task that they are currently doing but show how it can be developed to be easier, quicker or more popular with the kids.

LINK THE STEPS

I try not to jump around topics and tools between sessions. Try to link all the small steps together. For example, moving to Google Drive is good for this as steps are taken within one account and the format is similar throughout the Google eco-system. Google Drive is also enough like an old PC but introduces the use of Cloud storage and can then link to increased iPad use through the Drive app and thus mobile workflows.

If you jump from one topic to another, teachers can’t picture how all the ideas and tools link in different ways to their current practice. This is particularly evident with training that focuses on app after app. Most apps are isolated tools that might be great but when piled upon each other with all their various features, can overwhelm and produce little progress. This happens even if an app is covered each week or so. In the first 3 years, build a plan for how a limited number of apps will work together in the long term.

HAVE A BACKBONE

Any school or edtech team should have a planned set of apps or eco-system that together get all the basics done. This plan can be ignored or added to by the more confident teachers but acts as a core safety net for the less tech-minded. These basics are:

Sharing

Collaborating

Photos

Video

Text

Project organisation

Filing

Animation

Drawing

(I’m sure you might have others)

Many teachers I work with have often wished they’d just been told one way of doing things whilst other colleagues have enjoyed playing with a variety of apps. So providing a core eco-system is important to get everyone onboard.

Building basic confidence in tech use is the first hurdle for many teachers.

AN EXAMPLE

My Step 1: “Don’t worry, the new way is like the old way”Create a department Google Account to log all the non-technical people into on both iPads and laptops. Demonstrate the easy dragging of Word and Powerpoint files into the Drive and how it acts like an “old” computer.
Then show how the docs appear immediately on the iPad App. This worked well for our Apple TVs as I needed a wireless way to present all their normal files. The apps and browsers log in permanently, so no password remembering and They only had to remember that dragging worked.

Step 2. “I have a great reason to start using this”
“I’ve canceled the next meeting!” When I said this, they loved that I had freed up their time but you can trade that off against having to comment inside a Google document where all the questions, topics and discussion takes place over a week, when they each find time. Their browsers and iPads will already be logged in so emailing the doc link gets them all straight in.

Step 3: “We need to reduce the workload for all”
Indicate that sharing the same Google file structure means they can all use the same files and replication and movement of copies between teachers comes to and end. Groups of teachers can then add to the same files. This also works well for school or department policy or admin files that can be completed by the whole team, reducing workload further.

Step 4: “Explain Everything but just with photos and a laser”
The only standalone app I introduced was Explain Everything. Non-technical, traditional teachers could see it’s worth as again it only recorded what they’ d always done. The trick was reducing the app to just 2 features:

This is how you add a photo/screenshot to a slide,

This laser lets you point at stuff.

The videos will go to the same google/YouTube Account so no further passwords.
Don’t mention Flipped teaching yet as it scares/annoys many teachers. In fact stay away for edtech vocabulary all together. :-)

Step 5: “Stop! That will do for year 1″
Let teachers master 3 things each year and the school will have far more overall success. If all teachers in any school were using Google services and Explain Everything, it would be a real leap forward for most schools.

THREE ANSWERS

Professional development often fails by forcing too much too quickly, not giving personal/human reasons for shifting and not personalising it to individuals’ current needs.

Schools move slower than business because they lack the financial / survival incentives to change. Schools should work with personal incentives to encourage change. Educational incentives are a worthier cause but in reality, teachers are human before they are idealists.

Some teachers have habits developed over decades, so don’t try to change them but show how what they do can be done more efficiently and save them time. This will start the long road to change.